Purposes of Christ's Death: 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 and Romans 14:9

Back in my first years of blogging, on my old blog, I did a series of posts on the purposes of Christ’s death. Each post examined one or more of the purpose statement that scripture gives us regarding the death of Christ. A couple of years ago, I began reposting them here. I reposted eight old posts, and then, for some reason—or maybe no reason—stopped. I’d still like to have them all here, so I’m resuming the reposting and updating. (You can find the other posts from this series by clicking on the purposes of Christ’s death label at the end of this post.)

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, [10] who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 ESV)

There are some who  think that the terms awake and asleep in this text don’t refer to physical life and death, but rather to whether someone will be watching alertly or caught off-guard when the day of wrath comes, and they point to the verses right before this as evidence. I think it’s more likely that Paul is bringing us round again to the subject of the last part of the chapter before this one, that those who have already died and those who remain alive until Christ’s return will be joined together to be with the Lord. If you look at 4:17 and 18, and compare these verses to 5:9-11, you can see the parallels. Given these close parallels, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that awake and asleep in verse ten refer to physical life and physical death.

The purpose statement found in these verses is “so that whether we wake or sleep, we will live together with Him.”

Moving on to the next text:

For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:9 ESV)

The words “to this end” alert us to a purpose statement here. One of the goals of Christ’s death and resurrection was “that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living”. 

In both of these texts, our being united with Christ means that something remains the same for us even if we should die. In the first text, we see that our physical death does not change our expectation of living forever with the Lord. We need not fear the wrath on the day of the Lord — even though we die physically — because those who are united with Christ in His death are assured that there is no wrath in store for them, but rather, a wonderful life in the presence of the Lord. 

In the second text we are told that because Christ died and lived again, He is Lord of all those who belong to Him, those who are living and those who have already died. Because Christ himself once died and now lives, those who are “in Him” will remain “in Him” in either state, dead or living. For those to whom He is Lord in this life, He will remain Lord after death. 

Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, those who are united with Him can be assured that death will not change these two things: They can still count on living eternally with Christ, and Christ will remain their Lord. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians that we should use these truths to comfort and edify each other. We have nothing to fear, because no matter what happens to us, we are permanently and eternally included with Christ, since He died and rose for us. 

Christ died and rose on our behalf so that we can be certain that we will live forever with Him, whether live until his return or die prior to it; and so that he will always be our Lord, both while we are living and after we die.

This Week in Housekeeping: Semi-Pelagianism

This weekend I updated the theological term semi-Pelagian. The precise definition has been discussed lately because of a recent statement on the doctrine of salvation put forward by a group of Southern Baptists who are not fans of Calvinism. 

Some have called the statement semi-Pelagian, or at least semi-Pelagian sounding.1 In response, its defenders have mostly denied this charge, with a few saying they really don’t care if it’s semi-Pelagian or not because they’re not bound by historical creeds anyway.

What is clear in all this is that not everyone shares the same definition of semi-Pelagianism. I looked up my Theological Term page on semi-Pelagianism and realized there wasn’t much there, so I decided to update it. I couldn’t find a whole lot to add, but I did find a little more info.

semi-Pelagianism

• Fixed formatting issues.
• Added this very helpful quote from Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  [Semi-Pelagianism] admitted that the whole human race is involved in the fall of Adam, that human nature is tainted with hereditary sin, and that all men are by nature inclined to evil and not able, apart from the grace of God, to complete any good work; but denied the total depravity of man, the guilt of original sin, and the loss of the freedom of the will.

• Added a link to John Hendryx’s Differences between Semi-Pelagianism and Arminian beliefs.
• Added a link to a quote from Herman Bavinck on Semi-Pelagianism.
• Added links to related terms Augustinianism, Pelagianism, and original sin.

As I see it, the semi-Pelagian bit in the so-called “traditional” statement on the doctrine of salvation is in Article 2 on the sinfulness of man: 

We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell.

We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, we deny that any sinner is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.

That’s a pretty clear denial of the bondage of the will (We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will) and inherited guilt (We deny that Adam’s sin … rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned).

1In some places, the language of this document is confusing. It doesn’t use the precise language you’d expect in a well-written theological statement. Who knows what some of those sentences mean!

Ordo Salutis

This is a redo of a post from 2005. I want to link it from the ordo salutis theological term page, but it needed a thorough clean up first.

Ordo salutis (also called order of salvation) refers to the order in which benefits of salvation are applied to those who are being saved. It’s important to keep in mind that the order of an ordo salutis is logical or causal. Some of the benefits are applied in a single instant and cannot be separated time-wise; yet one is the logical cause of the other.

There is disagreement among different groups within Christianity as to the exact order of salvation. Here are some examples of orders of salvation from various sources.

From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

1. Election (God’s choice of people to be saved)
2. The gospel call (proclaiming the message of the gospel
3. Regeneration (being born again)
4. Conversion (faith and repentence)
5. Justification (right legal standing)
6. Adoption (membership in God’s family)
7. Sanctification (right conduct of life)
8. Perseverance (remaining a Christian)
9. Death (going to be with the Lord)
10. Glorification (receiving a resurrection body)

(This order of salvation graphic from Tim Challies is the same as Grudem’s except that it does not include death.)

From A.A. Hodge:

1. Regeneration
2. Faith
3. Justification

These two lists would be orders of salvation from a reformed or calvinistic perspective, and while they are different in how many steps they include on the list, the order is similar.

An evangelical noncalvinist ordo salutis would be something like this:

1. Prevenient Grace
2. Calling
3. Conversion
4. Regeneration
5. Justification
6. Adoption
7. Sanctification
8. Glorification

In Grudem’s list, items 3-6 would occur at a single point in time, but the logical and causal order would be as given, because regeneration produces conversion, justification is on condition of the faith that comes from regeneration, and it’s justification that paves the way for adoption.

In Hodge’s list, all three items would be instantaneous, but regeneration produces faith and justification is on condition of faith. Once again, it’s logical, not temporal, order.

In the noncalvinistic list, items 3-6 would occur as one event. Notice how similar these are to items 3-6 on Grudem’s list, differing only in the order of items 3 and 4. In a calvinistic system, regeneration is seen as the cause of conversion, and in a noncalvinistic one, conversion is seen as the cause of regeneration.  

Finally, from Romans 8, an ordo salutis given to us in the Bible:

1. Foreknowledge
2. Predestination
3. Calling
4. Justification
5. Glorification